It's been a little while since the last update. I'm still cracking on with Kingdom Asunder's latest redraft. Aside from one new scene which I may axe, it's going pretty well (I'm 26/28 chapters in). After that I'll address multi-chapter issues and then try and hunt down some beta readers to help hone the story to the razor-sharp point of excellence.

Also fiddling with a short story, a horror type, which is proving much trickier and more time-consuming than I'd imagined. But that's the way things go, sometimes things are much easier than anticipated (my steampunk short story, for example) other times they take longer and more effort.

The EU has come up with a particularly insane tax proposal. To try and get some VAT (value-added tax, basically a sales tax) from Amazon they're going to charge VAT not from the place of supply but the place of the buyer. I'm no tax expert, but from what I've read this means if someone (directly) sold a $0.99 e-book to a chap in Germany, you'd have to register for VAT in Germany. Likewise France, Italy, Greece etc. It's insane.

At the moment I *think* if you sell purely through third parties (Amazon,Smashwords, etc) you'll be unaffected, but if you sell, for example, your own e-books directly through your own site this will mean you either need to stop or get ready to do battle with a mountain of red tape. The law's insane, badly drafted, will harm small businesses and will actually entrench Amazon's strong market position rather than diminish it.

If you're British, there's a petition you can sign calling on the Business Secretary to uphold the current digital VAT exemption threshold, which is here: https://www.change.org/p/vince-cable-mp-uphold-the-vat-exemption-threshold-for-businesses-supplying-digital-products

Please do sign it. Even if I'm right (and therefore personally unaffected) the law remains indefensibly badly drafted and will cause serious harm to small businesses.

At the moment, my plan is to withdraw my books from sale before the start of next year, as a precautionary measure. Whilst that isn't good, if I'm wrong and even authors selling via Amazon et al. are caught up in this it could mean a huge amount of red tape. I may change my mind if I'm convinced I won't be affected.

So, if you haven't bought a certain book yet and want to do so, grab them while they're hot, because they might not be available in the first couple of months next year (or for longer, depending how that mad law goes).

In better news, the two book deal I have with Tickety Boo Press means Sir Edric's Temple will return, and the release of Sir Edric's Treasure will not be affected. Huzzah!